Twin Cities news and culture magazine City Pages recently selected “Reconfiguring Casta,” an exhibit featuring the work of Maria Cristina Tavera, director of the McNairs Scholars Program at Augsburg College, as a “must-see art show.” Tavera’s artwork is on display in the Christensen Center Art Gallery through March 31.

The article states that Tavera is “A powerhouse curator and advocate for Latina artists,” and that she “is a skilled artist in her own right, examining how the Latin American diaspora express their identity in today’s world.”

Augsburg College President Paul Pribbenow was one of the high-profile Minnesotans recently included on a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry as “un-Minnesotan.”

Others who added their support to the campaign include Gov. Mark Dayton, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and the CEOs of prominent Minnesota businesses such as Best Buy, General Mills, and Cargill.

The ad was a joint effort between Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management. It states that although Minnesotans, “may be a soft-spoken bunch, we know better than to be silent or still in the face of bigotry shown to Muslims. Our fellow Minnesotans.”

Farrington Llewellyn ’12 was featured in a City Pages article about the Black Identity Series, a sequence of public conversations he designs and facilitates.

Llewellyn, who holds a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from Augsburg College, started the Black Identity Series as an alternative to Black History Month. The idea, he said, is to provide further understanding of African American and black identity issues through the use of conversation and sharing.

“As you get older, you start to realize the things you were going through when you were younger,” Llewellyn said. “I realized that most of these problems come out of issues with identity.”

A recent City Pages article reviewed the opening of “On Fertile Ground: Native Artists in the Upper Midwest” being held at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis. Augsburg College alumna Alexandra Buffalohead ’13 is among those showing work at the gallery. City Pages describes Buffalohead’s work as “one of the highlights of the show” and describes her sculptures as hanging “like ghosts in front of a turquoise wall.”